Hour of the wolf
by Lex Noctis
Summary: Hollstein Season 2 drabbles. Mostly expanding on the aftermath of the episodes. Happen at night.
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** This drabble was inspired by the endless flow of gifsets of Laura cradling Carmilla. I just could not help but draw upon it.

* * *

 _Laura can't sleep, she creeps downstairs to see how Carmilla is recovering. Feels ensue._  
(Hollstein drabble. The immediate aftermath of 2.20 Damage Control.)

 **. . .**

It's 4:15 in the morning and soon the sun will be coming up above the mountain range, but that doesn't matter. Vordenburg's goons (where did he get those bodybuilder personal security guards?) had been send on their way after an awkward attempt at a search under the pretense of looking for 'vampire traps and lures'. Judging by the fact that they could not find a single secret passage or a trap door, the surprize inspection was a profound failure. That doesn't matter either though, at least not now.

Laura could not sleep. She tossed and turned as her mind refused to quiet down. So now she given up on getting any sleep instead walking out of her room and heading downstairs. She's secretly envious of LaF and JP, who can fall asleep after the midnight's task of preforming amature surgery. Even Perry, despite claiming the opposite, is asleep at this ungodly hour. Laura's the only one awake in the whole silent apartment.

No, that's not quite true. As she creeps down the stairs and across the hall, a blanket thrown around her shoulders like some kind of a ghost, Laura can see the silhouette formed against the glass of the door leading to the foyer. Mattie. No doubt souped up on blood and holding the vigil for whatever dangers she can foresee. Laura's mind flashes back to that moment when some daring force had propelled her to argue – straight up call an ultimatum! – in front of a 1200 year old vampire. A vampire, who could have easily called her bluff. Deep down, or, really, not that deeply at all, Laura was terrified. And she still kinda is, that feeling didn't change just because Mattie had begrudgingly agreed to her terms. Turning in her bed for what seemed like hours, Laura had time to think, and as it so often happened, the smarter revelations had only arrived after the fact. Yeah, Mattie's promise didn't really mean much. She could disregard it at any point. But… What was she supposed to do? Ignore the obvious vampire-on-a-rampage thing? At least this way, there was a chance that no one else is going to be hurt.

The thing is though, thought Laura as she glances back at the familiar shadow lurking behind the door, she _was_ right about Mattie. She was right because no matter what, no matter what happened, the look in her eyes was the same… Still, right now she couldn't care about the vampire menace. Frenemy? Neme _sister_? No, her mind is preoccupied by one thing only.

Laura inches forward, slips in the furthest room from the entryway. There's nothing in here besides a sofa and some book shelves filled with old, dusty books. All the windows are lacked and the drapes are closed shut. By the looks of it, LaF might have stapled some of the corners just in case. The corner of Laura's mouth twitches a bit, but she can't bring herself to actually smile.

She walks on her tip toes, the long blanket slithering along the floor behind her. The sofa is occupied. After consuming large quantities of blood and some oddly endearing reassurances from Mattie, Carmilla is finally asleep. Laura kneels next to the couch, her eyes skidded along Carmilla's, but got drawn to her face. The blood and dirt had been cleaned off, the ripped during the operation shirt replaced. There are bandages peeking above the hem, stretches of white across her chest and shoulder. She's paler than usual, even though the sickly gray splotches covering her skin are gone by now. She looks better, not like she was when Mattie just bought Carm here. The grayness had been gone the minute she drank the blood left in the fridge (and, Gods, Laura can not be more grateful for her reluctance in throwing away everything that reminded her of Carmilla).

But even so, she looks so drained, so thin and… Laura takes a deep breath to steady her racing heart. _She's okay_ , Laura repeats to herself, _she's gonna be fine_ , yet that doesn't help at all. Carmilla's chest rises and falls at a steady rhythm as she sleeps, but then she groans and moves her head. Laura doesn't realize her hand is moving until it brushes a few stray locks away from Carmilla's face. Her skin is cold and clammy and the way she exhales in her sleep, the way her fogged features relax at Laura's touch, it breaks her heart all over again. Laura inches closer and plops on the floor at the head of the couch, her hands are moving of their own volition extracting Carmilla's hand from under the blanket she's been covered with. Laura clasps the weak palm and brings it to her face. She kisses the knuckles of that pale hand and holds it up to her cheek. Her eyes are closed and she desperately tries to ground herself, keep her resolve from shattering, but the hand in hers is cold and weak and it doesn't close around her fingers. A strangled whimper escapes her throat.

She can't help it as the storm that had been raging in her chest finally bursts out. The tears she had been holding at bay roll down her cheeks. Laura knows she shouldn't do this. They're not even dating anymore. Carmilla broke her heart. And maybe it was her fault, too, but she's not supposed to be here. Laura has no claim, no invitation to sit by this improvised hospital bed. No reason to cry for her.

Except for the fact that she… she loves her.

" _You can't do this to me again, Carm…"_ the whisper is barely auditable.

Laura's not sure if she's saying or thinking this, but it had been growing in her heart from the second she saw her. Saw her hanging on Mattie's shoulder with blood dripping down her chest.

" _I thought, I had cried my eyes out after the battle. I thought you were dead! You have any idea how…"_

Laura stops her desperate outburst, though she's still whispering. Another sob is is choking her throat and she swallows thickly.

" _I know this is all so messed up now… B-but… Just please don't leave me… Yeah, we're not together and maybe it was… No matter what, I can't lose you… I l-lo..."_

The rest of that sentence gets swallowed by barely contained sobs. Laura brushes another kiss to the tear stained knuckles and lowers Carmilla hand back onto the blanket. She throws one last look at her pale face, sniffles and bolts out of the room. All Laura wants now is to get back to her room burry her face in the yellow pillow and let it all out. The stress, the heartbreak, the hurt and regret, the mounting guilt, the unfairness of it all. How all of her decisions tend to backfire spectacularly and how this whole supernatural circus IS NOT what college life was supposed to be!

She runs away without a solitary glance back and thus doesn't see the form on the couch shifting. Doesn't see the hand she was holding brought to the other's lips. Doesn't see the pain and longing in the bleary chocolate eyes, still clouded by the ether, blood and lack of energy. Doesn't see those eyes track after her and the moisture gathering in them.

She rushes up the stairs and collapsed into her bed. The hoarse sobs that follow are muffled by the yellow pillow.

As the morning rays of sun peek through the curtains and climb up onto her bed, Laura had finally succumbed to uneasy sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN:** This has been in a huge way inspired by the transmedia content, specifically by Laura and Carmilla's tweets. In my headcanon a day passes between 2.20 and 2.21 just so that the previous drabble's still in the same continuity. Also, there's going to be a mirror drabble to this one with Carmilla's POV, but later. I'm spacing out the angst.

* * *

 _It's too much in one day, too much to process and too much to find the release of sleep. Neither for the girl upstairs, nor for the cat under the floorboards._  
(Hollstein drabble, takes place right after 2.22 Compulsory Violence.)

 **. . .**

Laura had collapsed into bed barely an hour ago and yet it feels like she had been tossing and turning for ages. The luminescent clock on the bedside table glows with 3:55, the numbers only adding to her fatigue while remaining meaningless all the same. It has been one hell of a day. Laura thought she could do it. She woke up in the afternoon, sore and drained from the previous night's events. The deadly tired and miserable Laura she found in the mirror looked like a stranger – eyes bloodshot from crying, hair in disarray and lower lips bruised from biting on it too hard. But she had to put her game face on, she had to be the boisterous, plucky Laura. The Laura they all needed her to be.

So that's what she did. Resumed the same routine. Cleaned her face, brushed her teeth, walked downstairs to have breakfast at half past twelve, greeted her friends with a smile and listened to Perry chiding her for sleeping in late. Because she had to. God, it feels so stupid now, now that she has no more energy to pretend, to brave on through all of this! It seemed so easy during the day. Moving furniture and settling in to play this ancient game LaF found in the Dean things – whatever it's called again? It was easy to pretend, to put on the usual optimistic mask. Even with Danny. Especially with Danny. The trusty old mantra of _everything's gonna be okay, it's gonna be fine_. Dammit. So much for the mantra.

Why did it had to fall apart like that? Why did Perry have to lose it? Laura still could not tell where she got the holy water. Why did Mattie have to retaliate, but then again of course she did. And they just kept on the merry go round of accusations, but in the end…

" _Fuck."_ the quiet sob escapes her throat and Laura buries her face in the yellow pillow.

It has been too much of that already! Or, maybe not nearly enough.

Because it was on her. It was all on her.

Taking Perry to the emergency assistance post had been a trial. A trial of patience and keeping it all together for just a little bit longer. It had been dreary and painful, but simple - the routine of going through the motions settling in for both LaF and her. And isn't that the most surreal thing of it all. Why, how, for what inconceivable in any universe reason would it be okay to get used to the ER visits? The visits where neither they nor the doctors bat an eye at the bite marks and strange blood letters in dead languages.

Though, of course, that wasn't enough. Since she was there, waiting in the dark. Like she always was. And Laura could not keep her heart from weakly fluttering in her chest, the painful pang settling in deeper. Carm was there, but she wasn't. Right there, so close Laura could just let her defenses crumble and fall into her chest and let it all out. But she didn't. She couldn't. Carmilla was _there_ , saying the sweetest and the cruelest things, and she was oceans apart at the very same time. Saying the things she wanted to hear and the ones she didn't. Putting it all out in the open. God, she looked so honest, no pretense, no passive-aggressive vampire crap! So resigned and looking back with such vulnerability in her eyes. In the span of a few minutes Carmilla had soothed her pain and broken her heart all over again.

And then, when Laura had gathered her last scraps of whatever it was that let her stand up and walk away, then she had to drop _that_ bomb.

Why did she do that? Her mind rebels even now, unwilling to believe in the word she knows were really spoken. She knows even if she can't quite believe it. Why? How? What is she supposed to do with that?

Laura does not remember how she got upstairs, how she changed into warm, comfy PJ's. All she can hear are the parts of the night's events and the blood thumping in her ears. All her wearing down brain's filled with is the kaleidoscope of scenes and events that happened since she started her quest for truth. What did Carm called it? The Lois Lane junior gig? How fitting. Her head is still whirling. Even lying down covered by her snuggly Dr Who blanket and hugging the yellow pillow, she still fills submerged, swimming through the muddy water. Like she had been wandering in a daze all night.

' _And you HAD to leave me without cocoa and cookies, too,'_ the thought is somewhere between a petulant, desperate attempt to shift the blame and a plea, just as desperate. A plea filled to the brim with uncontrollable longing.

Because of course she would do that. Of course, she would drink all of her cocoa and eat all of her cookies. Because that's Carmilla, the roommate from hell. It's _her_ roommate from hell, it's _her_ Carm. And it's what they have been and it's what they are. It's infuriating and selfish, kind and loving and everything in between. It's the galaxy sized hole that's taken residence in her chest. And even if it's not enough, even if this seems to be doomed and entirely too painful right now, the alternative is so much worse. At least, Laura knows she's there, down the staircase, below the trap door. Curled in the corner of the secret passage.

Her room is cold and empty. Laura shifts to look at the clock hugging the pillow tighter to her chest. 4:17. She can't sleep. She wants to, needs to quiet down her mind. But it's too much and too lonely. It's so empty and shadowy up here all by herself. Like the pressure is going to squish her and the shadows are about to swallow her whole.

Laura bolts out of bed. She drapes the blanket over her shoulders and creeps downstairs. The walk is familiar, the sense of deja vu washes over her, but she pushes those thoughts aside. The windows of the living room are letting some of the moonlight in and far away at the horizon there's that roy glow in-between two high peaks. That's the valley where the sun comes up first. Laura lowers onto the floor bundling up in the blanket. She knows she looks like a cocoon like this, but the unhappy thought that comes to her is about how this caterpillar won't be becoming a butterfly any time soon.

She pulls the pillow to her chest and puts her head on the floor listening for the movement. It's not comfortable, but it's closer. Closer to… _her_.

It's wrong and maybe even cowardly, or perhaps desperate, and her back will be paying for it in the morning, which is not that far away, but that's the only way she can sleep. Forgetting about the tear lines on her cheeks and tracing the rough lines of the floorboards with the pads of her fingertips.

' _Just for tonight,'_ she mouths silently fearful of that pesky heightened hearing.

Because lying here, on the floor where she really shouldn't be, it hurts a little less. Like being closer to that part of her heart - if it wasn't the whole damned thing! - that Carmilla stole and never given back had lessened her pain.

And that's all she can hope for now. That it hurts a little less.


	3. Chapter 3

_Carmilla watching Laura sleep, singing to her and thinking about what is going on with them.  
_ Hollstein drabble. Takes place the night before 2.14 & 2.15 (just before the break up).

 **. . .**

Laura sleeps. Her face is always so expressive as she sleeps. Be it a nightmare or a stroll through the dreamland filled with teddy bears and unicorns, Laura wears her emotions on her sleeve, even asleep. Carmilla had noticed that once amusing and now endearing quality about this girl on their first night as roommates. She had developed a habit of watching Laura sleep ever since. She can tell by the way creampuff's nose scrunches up, her brown knit together and mouth falls a little bit open that Laura's having a nightmare. She can tell by the small smile playing on her lips and the tilt of her head when Laura is dreaming of something nice, like bike safety and a good book, by all signs. Carmilla can tell when Laura is dreaming about _her_. The rosy blush tinting the tips of her cheeks, the tiny hitch of breath, an adorable bite of the lower lip. The name she had heard a couple of times being whispered by Laura. Those are the memories Carmilla knows she has to absorb, commit to memory before it's too late.

But now the tired out human is deep in her dreamless sleep, far away from the waking world. She is curled on her side, her head resting on the yellow pillow. Carmilla glances around the room again from her relaxed position sitting up with her back against the headboard. A few lonely candles are the only source of light as the skies are closed off with the cover of clouds. It might rain later. Her brown eyes pass over the low clouds seen through the window without any real interest. The tiny flames of the candles aren't wavering, it's calm. Almost too calm. Like the changed silence before the sudden storm hits.

Carmilla is idly playing with Laura's hair, weaving in and out of the honeyed strands. Her fingers untangle from under the long tresses to fall upon the girl's features. She's tracing the lines of her face with the pads of her fingertips, as light as a feather. Laura is wearing a serene expression, the deep sleep had relaxed her features, seeped the worry out of her knitted brows. Right now Laura looks like an angel, if there ever were such a thing. Her gentle features shine with some kind of an inner light, or maybe it's just Carmilla's intractable feelings clawing to get out. Carmilla sings under her breath as her eyes watch Laura's chest rising and falling.

" _You are my sunshine, my only sunshine… hmmm… You make me happy when skies are grey. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you–"_

Her quiet voice breaks at the end if that line and she swallows the lyrics. Carmilla tries to get the thick lump down her throat and sighs. Her fingers continue to play with the long honeyed strand of hair. Her hand moves absentmindedly through the tresses. She's not singing anymore, but softly hums the song until the candles burn out not letting her eyes leave the oval of Laura's face for a moment. As the darkness falls Carmilla grows quiet. She sighs, the breath of air erupting from her chest, ragged, painful.

The middle of the night had come and gone. The darkness outside is only disturbed by the flickering lights of the far-away lanterns on the campus _–_ the ones that are still functional. Carmilla shuffles down on the bed laying next to her girlfriend, but instead of clinging to her, instead of wrapping her arms around the small body, she flops onto her back and stares into the dark ceiling.

The recent conversation is ringing in her ears. It's right there, sharp, cutting. It comes together in a burst, all at once, her weary mind not sparing Carmilla any mercy.

' _Hey, Laura?' – 'Yeah?' – 'Could we pretend– just for tonight that if I asked we'd run away? We'd find some way to leave and we'd just go. Somewhere without murders or sisters. We'd sleep in hotel rooms and never live in the same city twice. There's be no one to fail or disappoint, or save. It would just be… You and me in love.' – 'That would be nice wouldn't it?'_

The kiss flashes through her mind like a lightning bolt, searing, burning, devastating, because she knows what comes next.

' _But... our friends need us. The school needs us. Maybe we could be happy that way, but you know we wouldn't even be you and me anymore. We'd just be these, empty shells who ran away.'_

Carmila remained silent back then. It would have been too much. Too much for Laura, too much for herself to dive head first into admitting how deep she got. Mattie was right, after a fashion.

' _You'll never know, dear, how much I love you.'_

Carmilla stares at the ceiling unseeing the intricate patterns on the canopy above the bed. All she sees are the blurred images of her life. And the ceiling seems to be better to look at than the warm body next to her, even though Carmilla knows she won't be able to hold out for long. The ceiling stares back, unflinching, not caring, maybe it's better that way.

"Where are we going, Laura?" she whispers to it.

There is no answer, though she would not be expecting one even if the girl was awake. If she was looking at Laura instead of tracing the specs of dust up above. Neither of them knows.

But the dreadful feeling in Carmilla's chest tightening at her ribs had been screaming at her. It had warned and pleaded and whispered of all the things Carmilla didn't want to notice. But she had. The whirlpool of events is coming closer and closer to its conclusion. She had wished so much to simply go, leave this place and never look back. The desperate longing for her freedom, for that one chance she had miraculously had been given to walk away from this madness. But Laura had to stay. That unbelievable girl can not let go, it's not in her naive, stubbornly optimistic nature. Laura is going to dig until she gets too close to the flame to burn herself. And it had been hanging over Carmilla like the sword of Damocles ready to split her heart in half at one wrong move.

It's coming, whispered the ugly inner voice and Carmilla throws her arm across her eyes and begs for the sleep to take her away. Even the usual nightmare about the steel box filled with blood is preferable, more familiar _–_ comforting in its known, define quality than the endless swirling of dark thoughts and dreading the looming future. The past is clear and it hurts in all the old places, places where the scars are old and worn. Ready to take the beating, to push back. The future is like a tender underbelly ready to be sliced anew, get the scarring going in a different place all over again. One way or the other, Carmilla always loses, no matter what she can not keep what's most precious to her. And she's terrified of what she's standing to lose now.

' _Please, don't take my sunshine away.'_


	4. Chapter 4

_This was inspired by the unfollowing of twitter feeds, taken way out of proportion by the fandom.  
_ Hollstein drabble. Takes place immediately after 2.30 "Co-Existence".

 **. . .**

Carmilla stands at the very top of the tower. The tower crowning the old science building, which for some unbelievable reason had escaped all the mayhem of the last year.

Her vision remains blurred as she observes the campus sprawling down below her in all directions. Some light were flickering in the night, but most of the people were supposed to be in their comfy beds. Or in Vordenberg's hard detention bunks. Though, lots of them probably had woken up at the force of the explosion. The center stage is still taken up by the roaring fires of bright lavender coming up from the crater. Broken chunks of the great machine and smoking slices of the anglerfish had been strewn all over the open field around it. Upturned trees covered in fish guts, a line of bike stands completely leveled by one of the round sections of the machine. All the windows had been blown in what was left of the Lustig building that hadn't yet crumbled. The techs and soldiers of Corvae could be seen from up above scurrying around the devastation like ants. Yes, they were all ants.

Carmilla turns her head towards the moon, long raven locks whipping around her face by the wind. She did not care. There was little left for her to care about after this night.

She watches the moon and the small blinking lights around it and could not help but remember. The round, full pale shape reminds her of the easier times. There was that wonderful night in Cairo, at the turn of the century. Mother had, in one of her uncharacteristic lenient whims, allowed them all a leave. So the 'children' had taken to traveling. They haven't been to Egypt in ages and Mattie was raving about some kind of ancient duck roasting technique or some such. It was a good vacation. Despite Will being a pain in her behind, the bickering and constant one-ups manship getting on Carmilla's nerves, it was nice. Mattie lead them around, told stories about the places and people long dead and gone. They were free there, far away from Mothers control, at least for a short while. They ate, drank and sought out trouble for all it was worth and in the evenings, when the night was illuminated by the lights from the streets, they would lay on rooftops and just stare at the night's sky.

A buzzing, insistent, annoying buzzing breaks her out of her reminiscing reverie. Carmilla twitches, her hand groping around her body in a slaked motion. The awkward bulge poking at her side is the source of that grating sound.

Her phone. She had managed to leave with the device in her jacket's pocket.

Carmilla coaxes the rectangular shape out of her jacket. It's the same as always, black, unobtrusive, stolen off one of the coeds she had played with what seems like a decade ago, but it was just last year. Carmilla looks at the screen seeing the notifications and not seeing anything at all at the same time. Her mind's in a fugue as her finger swipes the unlock on autopilot.

There wasn't much on her phone. Truly, almost all her social connections were far too old to be using phones or the internet… There was an old text from Mattie in there, she knows it. Some photos taken in their blood-fused drunkenness.

The phone vibrated again and the screen flipped to the only twitter feed she was interested in. A picture of a redhead with an old-fashioned phone reciever propped in the nook between her ear and shoulder. Lois Lane, of course. Or maybe one of the chicks from that 40s show she likes so much. Background filled with the back of books. Jane Austen, original fairy tales and the like. The string of messages below. Each striking into her unbeating heart like a dagger, one worse than the last.

" _I didn't mean for this. Not any of it." – "I just wanted to keep everybody safe." – "And now no one is."_

Carmilla blinks because she has trouble reading the letters, something's clouding her vision. A few drops fall on the glowing screen and she wonders absentmindedly if it's gonna rain. It could only be rain. _Vampires do NOT cry._ They don't, even if…

" _And I can't blame Danny for saving herself. Or Carm for being so, so angry." – "Which means the only person to blame is me."_

Carmilla's shaking hands hover over the screen for a moment before she finds the little 'unfollow' button in the interface and pushes it. Her thumbs stay over the stained screen and a white hot mess inside of her condenses into an icy steel rod. For not longer than a minute she knows exactly what to do. Her thumbs fly over the keyboard and the words being sent out are coming from that burning with savage indignation part of her.

" _When I'm done with this place, there will be nothing left but ashes."_

The dark, vicious satisfaction lingers in her misty yet almost mad eyes, but it doesn't last. Laura's messages go away, but she can still see them, no matter what. It's just not enough. None of this is enough, none of this ever will be. Carmilla grips the phone in her hand until the screen cracks and the light fuzzes out. It _hurts_. It hurts more than she can bear. She takes a lungfull of air through her trembling nostrils and pulls her arm back. With a cry that sounds more like a screech she throws what remains of her phone into the night not giving a second thought to what will happen to it. She collapses onto her knees as if the air had been punched out of her and wraps her arms around her middle.

It's too much. The whirlpool of emotion in her chest is stronger than she had felt for generations. It's crippling and she has to get it under control. She has to. Deep down below the rage and grief and hurt and betrayal there's still a little light swaying under the harsh wind. It wavers and sways but doesn't go out. It radiates warmth no matter what and that hurts more that anything. Carmilla still loves her. She loves that insipid, foolish girl! Oh, how she wishes now that she could just stop, just throw Laura out of her heart and be done with it, but she can't. The light is drown under the weight of everything else, but despite the darkness attempting to strangle it, this little candlelight just pushes deeper, burrows further into Carmilla's soul.

She pushes it away. That light haven't brought her release from the tragedy of watching Mattie's eyes close for the last time. That warmth had always been a trap, lolling her into submission only to split her heart in half later. Mattie was right. Love is not the answer. Carmilla was a fool. A deprecating chuckle escaped her throat along with a strangled, gurgling sob. She swallows hard and clenches her jaw.

Her rage _is_ the answer. The grief and betrayal fueling it are the answer. The searing, maddening swirl of unrestrained vengeance. The tensing of her muscles and the red fog clouding her brain – those are the answers. Her face contorts into a mask. Devoid of any emotion except for the stone-faced determination, yet her eyes are burning and her lips have spread into a cruel, anticipating smirk. She's almost salivating at the dark thoughts swirling in her mind. If she's to be alone, to drink this neverending chalice of grief for untold centuries, then all those ants below shall take a sip as well.

She stands up, slow, imposing, the image of unwavering fate to the cruel world. But if the world is cruel and unforgiving, why should she be any different?


End file.
